There's a million things that you take for granted that have to go right in this capitalist society for people to be as 'self-reliant' as Red states whose roads and infrastructures and subsidies are paid for by blue state urban taxpayers...
-- I just wish some of the those wonderful blue-staters would use that money to fix up their own infrastructure. Ever live in DC? Baltimore? I have. And let me tell you -- it's one pothole after another. Crime is through the roof. The cities are freaking zoos. Yeah, I've seen upclose what happens when "blue staters" have their run of government.
We have seen sunni and shia killing everywhere in the name of their Allah. Now we are getting into a similar division of black and white church. Nothing could more laughable than this. It is an insult to the Master that his path of love and compassion is now being twisted into hate and revenge. Let us not dismember Christ for whatever reason. We have an Osama in Islam who is solving the worlds problems with his violent means and that is enough. We do want a new Osama on the christian side. Todays world needs the love and compassion of Christ more than ever. Divide and ruin in the name of Christ has to stop. It is time that the black community denounced preachers like Wright. It is time the blacks considered themselves as part of the main stream americans. Same applies to those white preachers, if any, who want to divide chritianity based on color.
Prophetic, shmophetic!
There are things more at hand that need immediate attention.
From blackamericaweb.com, Monday, March 20, 2006:
"In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless -- that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.
Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.
In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school."
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, 20 May 1995:
"According to the latest US Department of Justice survey of crime victims, more than 6.6 million violent crimes (murder, rape, assault and robbery) are committed in the US each year, of which about 20 per cent, or 1.3 million, are inter-racial crimes.
Most victims of race crime—about 90 per cent—are white, according to the survey "Highlights from 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims", published in 1993.
Almost 1 million white Americans were murdered, robbed, assaulted or raped by black Americans in 1992, compared with about 132,000 blacks who were murdered, robbed, assaulted or raped by whites, according to the same survey.
Blacks thus committed 7.5 times more violent inter-racial crimes than whites even though the black population is only one-seventh the size of the white population. When these figures are adjusted on a per capita basis, they reveal an extraordinary disparity: blacks are committing more than 50 times the number of violent racial crimes of whites.
According to the latest annual report on murder by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most inter-racial murders involve black assailants and white victims, with blacks murdering whites at 18 times the rate that whites murder blacks.
These breathtaking disparities began to emerge in the mid-1960's, when there was a sharp increase in black crime against whites, an upsurge which, not coincidentally, corresponds exactly with the beginning of the modern civil rights movement."
In 2005 there were 8000 black homicides 90% by blacks killing blacks.
Put all this together with a disproportionate rate of black children abandoned by their fathers (innocent children who did not ask to be brought into such a hellish world). Their homes a round-robin of men there only seeking sex with their mother (is this a reason many black men grow up abusing black women?), also, a high rate of young black teen-age girls with sexually transmitted diseases, etc. etc.
And the people who suffer greatly from all this is the black community and especially the young children.
While so called leaders like Obama, the "Rev." Wright, the "Rev." Al Sharpton and all the other Reverends are ignoring these problems and blaming whites and America but never themselves and all the time living a millionaire's lifestyle. They have no shame and white liberals are afraid to call them on it.
All this speaks of a failure of many black churches, black leaders and much of black society.
The Revs. should take heed of the following:
". . . therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand."
There are exceptions to these failures. Bill Cosby is one of them. But they are not so many.
Yes, it's good for a black church or white church or any church to point out our collective failings. And collectively we should elect people and support programs that in some measure correct societal injustice in whatever form.
But where most well meaning religious people fall down in my view, is in their failure to examine their own personal faults and shortcomings, and change them through acts of honest self-examination, will and self-discipline.
If we eat or drink too much, are too often rude, profane or obnoxious, or criticize and judge too much, are petty, jealous or angry, or carry too much pride, greed and selfishness in our natures.......few members of any religion actually make an honest effort to undergo a little self reflection and correct even to a minor degree these frailties in themselves as individuals.
Yet they forever demand that others, whether society at large, or white society, or black society or whatever group.....transform their behavior lest they perish in a pit of fire.
Why not gage the effectiveness of your religion on the basis of how much it encourages individual responsibility and how much it helps you transform your own individual behavior. Such a process put into some kind of effective practice will actually in turn transform in a positive way the collective behaviors as a by product.
Thank you for the perspective of this article regarding the "different" rhetoric and speech of Rev. Wright, which I gather is not unique within the black religious community. A similar article was in today's Globe and Mail - Canada's 'national' newspaper, written by Michael Valpy.
Yes, Wright had some really over the top speculations such as the U.S. government inflicting AIDS on blacks and other minorities (but it is true that the U.S. govt. did not act quickly to deal with AIDS because of the 'underclass' it affected first)....
I watched Wright's speech at the NAACP and the q and a at the next day's press conference; and yes, the Wright press conference had some of a "full of himself" tone to it but the NAACP speech and Obama's 'much phrased' earlier speech on race relations in the U.S. both identified the isolation and differences between the mainstream community and the black community, things that a society needs to hear, accept and deal with.... not privilege the preferred rhetoric and mannerisms of one's own group as the only way to talk....
... I am amazed by the intellectual impoverishment and fish school group think of the
almost all of the U.S. media's commentators - this is not a group remotely capable of guiding an intelligent discussion on race; the same group that, with few exceptions, acted as Bush's cheering section in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, rather than as honest journalists......
the reverend wright is an intellectual,bright biblical scholar and culturally diverse in many areas.however i am disheartened with his performance at the press club earlier in the week.i feel that he blew an opportunity to showcase himself as a serious scholar of religion and various cultures.it was sad to see a 66 yr old man behave in the manner he displayed during the questioning and answer session.he completely made a buffon of himself and this was sad.i'm sure that many of his parishoners,including senator obama had ever seen this type of behavior from him.initially senator obama refused to disown the rev wright when so many others applied pressure to the senator to do so.in his most recent conference senator obama did repudiate rev wright as a person and his philosophy and the senator was correct in doing so.
There is no excuse or explanation for some of the nonsense Rev Wright has stated. We all have a remarkably similar sense of right and wrong. We must not allow those with an over active vocabulary cloud the difference between right and wrong.
""Why?", What believer in answers could fail to see, if not God's hand, then His warning in the events of that dreadful day?"
Someone who knows bad things are done by people sometimes, and was busy trying to help hold our *ahem* together, while some might be all primed for an apocalyptic freakout?
What *I* saw that day, I won't get into, but somehow the Gods weren't all that concerned with blame-games and sociopolitical advantage.
One bit of Christian conditioning I could never quite shake, was the idea that having a bad pain day or other illness or injury reflected some mysterious 'punishment' or rationale for blame. Not on bad pain days, anyway, when not thinking clearly.
It's foolish, though, to think so.
In the case of an attack, there are things that must be done. Defending, rescue and healing, and rallying friends. In the immediate term, America did pretty darn well.
Soon, though, the assignation of blame and scapegoats and 'How could God let this happen?' crept in after an America I was actually pretty proud of that day for *not* freaking out despite an absence of leadership till *Joe Biden, of all people* came out of hiding and started giving some answers.
What's to blame is not 'God removing his protection,' ...it's certain people believing they *had it in the first place,* and thus could bully around the world with impunity.
A simple Pagan isn't mystified by the fact that after how-many-decades of strutting around the world with guns and money and nukes, that *someone* might pull off something like that.
I didn't ask, 'Gods, how could you let this happen,' ...I asked, 'Gods-who-put-me-here-among-others-with human-life-and-some skills, what can I do now?'
I confess it was a little less articulate than that at the time.
Us, though. This happened because someone picked a fight and a lot of things went right when they tried.
What we, and those among us in religion and politics and money, have chosen to use it for, that's on them, and on us for letting them.
"What a relief! So Revs Falwell and Robertson were right to say God removed His protective hand over America because of her sins of abortion and homosexuality!"
The 'ridicule' there was hardly intense enough, if you happen to be a queer Pagan that politically-influential preachers and Republican party operatives tried to use as a scapegoat for a profound national trauma cause of some supernatural notion of divine retribution...
In the case of blaming a century of American foreign policy in a post-colonialist era, suppporting oppressive regimes that have used hatred of America to divert dissent while we helped them fill their coffers for the fact that that hatred hit our shores, well, yes, that's very different.
'God' didn't do it, but maybe your *ideas* about what's 'Godly' and what Christians expect others to go through in the name of God and unrestrained capitalism *did.*
It doesn't change the fact that *some men did some very horrible and unconscionable things,* but there is a difference.
""Oh, uh, I forgot, that was a different situation, worthy of the intense media ridicule because... because those were different, non-politically correct reasons for 9-11 that don't count because...because they're not politically correct! "
Those prominent Republican preachers weren't saying, 'Hey, treat people in other nations and here *better,*' they were saying, 'In the name of God, treat people *worse.*
Very different.
"We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline."
How about we start with better management? Since apparently some 'stronger values' don't meet with your approval?
"There are no handouts or i am owed this because."
In America, everyone is owed a fair shake. And some 'handouts' are *in fact* *owed.*
Not only owed, but *wise.*
My folks paid into the Social Security system all their working lives as bought-insurance against anything happening to themselves or their kids or their grandkids, or their neighbors who might get hungry if anything went wrong for *them* and make the neighborhood less safe.
It's not a 'handout' to pay out on that insurance so a smart person like me who can't walk so much or handle a working week doesn't spend her life scrounging for food or housing, instead of contributing as she can to society. Even if you don't like me.
Especially cause you don't like me.
There's a million things that you take for granted that have to go right in this capitalist society for people to be as 'self-reliant' as Red states whose roads and infrastructures and subsidies are paid for by blue state urban taxpayers... and one bigot anywhere in that chain can jam someone's life up for months or years.
Fairness and equality, and, yes, using some of our wealth on *the general welfare* instead of bigotry and prisons, aren't just something we all owe each other, they are *the way we have this America as we know it.*
You don't like 'handouts,' you look at what the corporations get on our backs.
I remember on 9/11 how I searched the Scriptures...not just the Isaiah, Jerimiah, Ezekial, Jesus, but also of Mohammad and deep into my own heart for a "Why God?" What wrong could be righted by such a monsterous, and audacious crime?
I happened to have been celebrating my retirement in NYC the day when the 1993 attack on the Trade Center towers was made. My wife and I emerged from our hotel to excitement in the streets. "Someone bombed the Trade Towers" we were told. Our reaction was "What is or are the "Trade Towers"? I heard about the 9/11 attack while returning an empty school bus to the bus parking lot....eight, nine, years into that retirement.....My response, not profound but accurate....."Those 'Ay Rabs' never did like that building."
As the enormity of the attack emerged that morning, falling bodies, the second plane, the first,and than the second tower collapse,the Pentagon and the crash in Pensylvania, the grounding of all air traffic.....you didn't have to be a retired Air Force pilot or the Vice President to discern that "the Nation" not simply the financial image of America had been attacked.
"Why?", What believer in answers could fail to see, if not God's hand, then His warning in the events of that dreadful day? (A person or a people can become pretty "sure of themselves" in an extended period of "prosperity," some might say "dominance." So.....why God? and why now?
Is Reverend Wright the only one to speculate that 'America's chickens are coming home to roost? What thinking person can honestly say that the thought hasn't occurred to thems? I certainly did. Should we pust back? Of course! But to ignor that American dominance of a finite planet is not universally welcome is beyond false patriotism, it is stupid, and it is dangerous. The God of "God Bless America" is, if anything at all, God-over-all. NOT an American God, NOT a Christian God, perhaps NOT even a 'Humane' God. God is transcendent;- else He/She/It is not God at all!
"Cheap patriotism." is akin to what Diedrich Bonhoffer called "Cheap Grace." I won't unapologetically wave the flag any more than I will wear the cross of my faith, and for precisely the same reason! My God is a BIG GOD whose interests transcend Christianity, Islam, Bahai, Buddism..... and perhaps life itself.
Bottom line. Rev. Wright, there are folks beyond the "Black Church" for whom you speak. Barak Obama, Go for it, fight the fight, you have my vote as a citizen of the world, and of the kingdom of God. It is a bonus that you are also a Christian American. When you lose, as is likely, (Most people don't get to be President), don't forget nor be ashamed of where you came from or any that you disclaimed in this race.
God Bless us all!
There are no mandates from God based on race or color.The mandates are based on compassion,love,wisdom and keeping God in your life.This country was built on christian faith with a belief in God.If any pastor wants to cry foul, they better look right at their home, their community. The Lord tells us we need to start there, not to blame. We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline.There are no handouts or i am owed this because..The Lord teaches thru our works we will be judged.To many think they have been wronged or are owed something, well your not..Thank the Lord that you live in the United States and have the opportunities that are here. My grandparents and parents did. mg
There are no mandates from God based on race or color.The mandates are based on compassion,love,wisdom and keeping God in your life.This country was built on christian faith with a belief in God.If any pastor wants to cry foul, they better look right at their home, their community. The Lord tells us we need to start there, not to blame. We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline.There are no handouts or i am owed this because..The Lord teaches thru our works we will be judged.To many think they have been wronged or are owed something, well your not..Thank the Lord that you live in the United States and have the opportunities that are here. My grandparents and parents did. mg
Black preachers have specialized in selling baloney to poor congregiants for a long time. They dress in Gucci clothes and drive in Cadillacs on the proceeds from their impoverished flock.
To some extent I agree with your argument; however, I think when Rev. Wright makes statements long the lines of his declaration that AIDS was a government conspiracy to eliminate blacks, that is where he crosses the line from speaking unpleasant truths to something more sinister. I’ve personally seen black prejudice against whites, and it’s just as ugly as the opposite.
Has white America oppressed blacks? Certainly. No argument there. But it’s time for African-Americans to stop using the oppression of the past as an excuse for failure in the present. Do we need to continue assisting in progress for African-Americans? Yes, but at the same time, they need to work as a group to uplift themselves as well.
What a relief! So Revs Falwell and Robertson were right to say God removed His protective hand over America because of her sins of abortion and homosexuality!
Oh, uh, I forgot, that was a different situation, worthy of the intense media ridicule because... because those were different, non-politically correct reasons for 9-11 that don't count because...because they're not politically correct!
Forbes, thy name is Blinkered Left-Wing Victimology.
Jim, Thank you for your response. The only thing that I was trying to state is #1 there are reasons why so many interepret scripture differently. Also, I wanted to point out the scripture that Jesus states: we are not all children of God, although we are all His creation. One thing I know is that Jesus wants us to love Him and others and as He states, if we love Him then we will obey Him (keep His commandments).
Ah yes, another apologist for institutionalized racism who rights it all by claiming - a people “buked and scorned” and “dehumanized and brutalized.”
Excuse me while I go vomit...
Matt Ryan wrote:
"What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stop counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!"
What is false in what Mr Forbes wrote? Help me to understand what fallacies did Mr. Forbes state in this piece.
Rev. Wright, a patriot and prophet, is going easy on America's fall from grace: anyone can read "The New Pearl Harbor," by PhD Griffin, to know with absolute moral authority that Bush and Cheney committed 9-11.
Dr. Forbes is gifted in this response. Unfortunately, once Miss Hillary wins (steals) the primary, she'll run off to these same churches that she loathes so much, hook arms with a black pastor, join in singing "We Shall Overcome", promise everything, deliver nothing, and life goes on. Because too many of our black churches appear so grateful to a white woman for coming to their congregation, that they will forgive and ignore her transgressions.
Didn't Bill Clinton invite Pastor Wright to the White House when he was caughting cheating on his wife? And now Miss Hillary denounces him?
Religion, Race and Politics...the culture war is raging in America according to the Karl Rove political playbook.
Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa. If Man was made in God's image, and the Judeo-Christian God was "discovered" in Africa...then I guess that God is a black African. If Jesus was born in Africa, he would be the black son of a black god as well.
How many Rev. Wright haters pray to a God with "African" features and worship a dark- skinned Jesus? Uh-Oh...race and religion...
How many Christians worshiping a European Jesus are conservative republicans? Religion and politics…
Can you make the distinction between the U.S. government and the American people, or do you intentionally blur the line between Party and Nation in order to intimidate critics of your policies (un-American, un-patriotic)? Politics and fascism…
Is “God’s will”, interpreted by the “prophet”, really the anticipated consequence of an action? Religion and policy…
Do you believe that all actions taken in the name of a European God-style Nation will result in only positive outcomes? Will history always prove you correct, or will you wait for enough time to pass that people forget your terrible mistakes?
Did any of the Rev. Wright haters actually listen to his sermon or did you just internalize the conservative spin?
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
Abraham Lincoln, President and Prophet
An excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865). etched in marble to left of the seated figure of Lincoln in his Memorial in D.C.
The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Lincoln's remark about how the entire speech was received; "... I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."
Moron. Religionists are all the same: they claim to have a special pipeline to God, so that they can try to imbue their own private cravings with the luster of the Divine.
I find the reaction of the media to Rev. Wright statements totally irrational. The media is concentrating on the trivial, while forgetting what is important to the average Joes and Janes, or more precisely the 90% of the population.
The issue of Obama, and Rev. Wrigth is no issue. That Obama goes to the church of Rev. Wright does not prove that Mr. Obama approves with everything that Rev. wright states. I agree with Aristotle with most of his statements. That I agree with most and not all of his believes does not make me a polytheist. Here we are stating that because Mr. Obama goes to Rev. Wright Church he must totally, 100% agree with every statement, and every believes that Rev. Wright adhere to; to add insult to injury the media request that he distance himself from the Rev. What we have here is irrational reasoning.
So, what is important to the 90% of the population?
Health care is not a luxury but a right that every citizen should have access to. The health care system is broken beyond patching. It is Humpty Dumpty after it fell from the wall.
Every worker should have a living wage. If companies can afford to pay their CEO’s 100 of millions, I am sure that they have the money to pay their employees a living wage of few thousand dollars.
Children are the future, so we must ensure that they are provided proper education and support starting from birth.
Given the levels of illegitimate births and criminality in the black community in America, the "critique" from black pastors should be more directed to those in the pews than faceless "oppressors" outside.
what is a "black church"?
how many americans have been to ebenezeer bapist church. i know about how many european americans, and it's not many.
what is a black church? what is black?
barrack obama ain't that black and i know a few black pastors for the deep south. ebeneezer baptist church? been there. i use to have pictures of ebeneezer baptist church in atlanta georgia, but they melted.
ever heard of George Forbes, Carl Stokes, Louis Stokes, Jesse Jackson, Malcom X, or some guy called Martin Luther King?
look, reverend wright knows jim crowe, even though reverend wright didn't experience jim crowe. jim crowe only died yesterday.
i am so white was born in '64. i feel jim crowe in my bones. i've seen jim crowe. i experienced jim crowe.
ever been to the mississipi delta?
i have.
jim crowe died yesterday, and some people take a week to get over things.
barrack obama has personal vitues, is talented, but probably hasn't killed anything he has eaten.
barrack obama is related to dick cheney by blood, but.....i don't think he has dick cheney in his blood.
Dino: Criticizing US policy isn't what got him in trouble, its equating our motives and good intentions with the mistakes that have been made. We don't intentionally kill citizens, we don't celebrate when thousands of Iraqis (or any Muslims) die, we're not happy when we're killing people....sure we may be misguided and mislead or easily duped into agreeing to a war that was wrong or being stupid enough to believe a preemptive war against a dictator would be percieved as a good thing, but to equate the average American with someone who revels in death is wrong on so many levels. That's was and is biggest problem. People can be racist or sexist or mean and cruel at times, but most (not all of course) people and americans don't intentionally set out to be mean, or racist or cruel etc. (speaking of the US of KKK comments or whatever). And what man of god would damn anyone, much less a whole nation of people? Isnt it their job to forgive our sins and bring us closer to god, not damn us?
Oh please. Religion is what is ruining the world. Everyone believes they are "more right" than the other. And no one can seem to move forward. People keep harboring what was done to their ancestors in the past. The past is the past, there's nothing you can do about it. As people become more enlightened through each generation, that's where the real learning and any kind of healing can take place. Crazy religious loons like Rev. Wright prancing and dancing around like an insane person just make things worse. Is he a pastor or a comedian on HBO's Def Comedy Jam???
What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stopped counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!
What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stop counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
I have never heard so much double-talk as I have when folks try to defend Wright. He is nothing like MLK, who appealed for love and justice from the pulpit. Wright is a hater who tries to inflame hatred and preys on susceptible weaklings. Only a few black churches advocate this hatred, and all the others who don't should speak out -- in the name of MLK and his tradition. Their total silence is curious. This type of racism is just that -- and I've heard too few liberals or blacks repudiate it. Guess that is left to us crackers.
I have now gone from a sure vote for obama to once again undecided. If McCain was hanging with David Duke for years he would not even be a blip in this mess. If Obama makes a very strong speech distancing himself far,very far away from wright i'll consider voting for him again. i am afraid i'm done with obama i'm in the white registered independent category who will probably be the most sought after. i'm tired of the bush clinton,bush era. Wright, you are not anywhere close to even one percent of MLK. Hope you are 15 miutes of pain and gone. you screwed the eventual winner
What Obama's pastor discussed at the Press Club, the other night, is old hat for many people in Europe and the rest of the world, outside the United States. The policies of many American governments have been imperialistic to the core, and in their imperialistic manifestations, they have been terrorizing the people at many parts of this world.
Somehow, most Americans are able to deny this reality, and pretend it is not so. When someone, especially someone American, like this pastor, starts speaking the unvarnished truth, then all hell breaks loose, because the American Nation, collectively, is desperate to maintain the collective denial.
The Truth about Christianity for Doctor/Preacher Forbes' Perusal and Comments:
1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm
2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
It has become the norm for ministers such as Wright to proclaim themselves to be self righteous and to believe their words stand lord of all.His words relating to 9-11 were hateful and I have no doubt he has hid his true idenity from Barak Obama and others all in the name of the dollar. His performance of the past days will be his legend,the good that his former chruch has done will not cover his vindictive mission. Surely he understands the statement a dog always eats it own vomit. Rev Wright is a wolf dressed in sheep clothing, he nor his pack can be ignored least he will slaughter the sheep.
Sir, Thank you for you expose' on Black Liberation Theology, it is the best explanation I have heard so far.
If I may, with respect to Elizabeth R., this type of rant is exactly why the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is so very popular not with just black congregants but with many others from different ethnic and class stratas. She asserts, as if anyone really cares, that Barack, the Rev. Wright and by implication all people who desire good standing in the greater, white dominated multi-ethnic society, first denounce Minister Farrakhan before they can hold national office. It is this type of old thinking that is the essence of the gospel according to Jeremiah Wright and many like him. In fact, Aristole spoke about those who rely on some other man to tell them who they can associate with, and what they can say and not say...they are called slaves. Minister Farrakhan is a very respected and admired person in the Black Community. He is a brillant, well educated, cultured man who has in the past and continues to speak truth (sometimes his) to power, and I for one appreciate him.
Perhaps "Liz" is not aware that slavery for Black people and "women", was overturned for over a century now.
This is a great time in America.
God bless Obama. God bless pastor Wright(guy is so fair did he too have a white parent).
But to me the pride of performance goes to the young white woman who was so brave or maybe so bored in Kansas, had the insight/folly, to marry a blackman and ; walla ,lo and behold, now America is on the verge of electing its first genuine product, its first real and truly authentic (DNA)President whose mother was white as the snow and whose father was as black as the night.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of. Be a part of this dream.
Obama may consider himself a blackman but he is also half white and that is the only truth.
The black church may have something on its heart, but when that "something" includes hero-worshipping a man who nakedly professed admiration for the orchestrator of history's most successful attempt at genocide based strictly on ethnic identity, you have to ask yourself what planet that church is living on.
You see, the thing is, you can't shift your principles depending on whether or not it's YOUR ox that's being gored. Obama should have left those pews when he saw how fervently Wright admired Farrakhan - that should have TOLD Obama something about who Wright really was: the kind of guy you can't trust, the kind of guy who only has problems with bigotry when it's his skin on the receiving end. Farrakhan is one of the world's biggest anti-Semites, and if you go along with anti-Semitism because you ain't Jewish, you can't complain when white people go along with racism because they ain't black. And in not repudiating Wright for hanging with Farrkhan and his ideas, Obama was tacitly admitting that those views just didn't bother him that MUCH - because, after all, he ain't Jewish. Those views are bothering him now because they've become suddenly very, very, politically inconvenient.
The black experience in America has been awful - but it's not going to get better or become undone by making excuses for someone like Wright holding up someone like Farrakhan as a "role model" for the black community. You'll notice that what Arab Muslims are doing to black Muslims in the Sudan (let's see, I think the Janjaweed is closing in on 500,000 dead and more than a million refugees) never enters Wright's conversation - nahhhhh, it's JEWS and ZIONISM that are black people's problem!!!!
They have a quaint saying in England: "you can't run with the fox and hunt with the hounds". You can't call yourself a real Christian and hang with Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, and you can't hang with Wright's embrace of Farrakhan and claim you're shocked, shocked, SHOCKED when that guy turns out to be someone who also thinks the US government cooked up the AIDS virus to kill black people, holds up bombing Japan in WWII as terrorism while forgetting to mention Pearl Harbor, and stabs you in the back because you've distanced yourself from his nutsos.
It's all of a piece, brothers and sisters. Principles remain principles even when history makes it irksome to maintain them. Obama is sowing what he reaped by not heaving himself out of Wright's church years ago, and finding himself another black church - because the "black church" is no more a monolith than the Catholis are nowadays, or the Anglicans, or the Presbyterians. For some reason, Obama stuck with THIS one, and his reasoning for why just doesn't hold water.
Reverand Wright is no prophet--he is a profiteer, a shameless exhibitionist feasting on his own festering bitterness while he preys upon the vulnerabilities of his congregation. And on a lighter note, how can anyone believe a man who smirks more than President Bush does?
Angela,
Jesus was Jesus and I am but a mortal man. As a mortal man I have trouble grasping mortal things. God, when he realized man was progressing without restraints began talking to us in parables.
I can barely make sense out of a common conversation and I am terrible with riddles. Because of these limitations I let the words God gave us prior to the advent of parables direct my life. The words of God that I obey are very simple, they are the Ten Commandments. I understand those words.
The hidden meanings in the bible as well as the many attempts by man in multiple books to write about the bible only confuse me more. I have lived for sixty six years and I am proud to say that I haven’t nor will I under any circumstance kill someone.
I work at fulfilling the rest of the Ten Commandments as best I can. I look at the Bible as a tool that was provided by God to further enhance my chances of living within the Ten Commandments. I do not look upon the Bible as anything else but a tool I can use towards that end. END THE WAR IN IRAQ.
Reverand Wright is no prophet--he is a profiteer, a shameless exhibitionist feasting on his own festering bitterness while he preys upon the vulnerabilities of his congregation. And on a lighter note, how can anyone believe a man who smirks more than President Bush does?
All Comments (85)
Hello my friends :)
;)
May 14, 2008 2:28 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 14, 2008 02:28
There's a million things that you take for granted that have to go right in this capitalist society for people to be as 'self-reliant' as Red states whose roads and infrastructures and subsidies are paid for by blue state urban taxpayers...
-- I just wish some of the those wonderful blue-staters would use that money to fix up their own infrastructure. Ever live in DC? Baltimore? I have. And let me tell you -- it's one pothole after another. Crime is through the roof. The cities are freaking zoos. Yeah, I've seen upclose what happens when "blue staters" have their run of government.
May 2, 2008 8:22 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 2, 2008 08:22
We have seen sunni and shia killing everywhere in the name of their Allah. Now we are getting into a similar division of black and white church. Nothing could more laughable than this. It is an insult to the Master that his path of love and compassion is now being twisted into hate and revenge. Let us not dismember Christ for whatever reason. We have an Osama in Islam who is solving the worlds problems with his violent means and that is enough. We do want a new Osama on the christian side. Todays world needs the love and compassion of Christ more than ever. Divide and ruin in the name of Christ has to stop. It is time that the black community denounced preachers like Wright. It is time the blacks considered themselves as part of the main stream americans. Same applies to those white preachers, if any, who want to divide chritianity based on color.
May 2, 2008 3:48 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 2, 2008 03:48
Prophetic, shmophetic!
There are things more at hand that need immediate attention.
From blackamericaweb.com, Monday, March 20, 2006:
"In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless -- that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.
Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.
In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school."
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, 20 May 1995:
"According to the latest US Department of Justice survey of crime victims, more than 6.6 million violent crimes (murder, rape, assault and robbery) are committed in the US each year, of which about 20 per cent, or 1.3 million, are inter-racial crimes.
Most victims of race crime—about 90 per cent—are white, according to the survey "Highlights from 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims", published in 1993.
Almost 1 million white Americans were murdered, robbed, assaulted or raped by black Americans in 1992, compared with about 132,000 blacks who were murdered, robbed, assaulted or raped by whites, according to the same survey.
Blacks thus committed 7.5 times more violent inter-racial crimes than whites even though the black population is only one-seventh the size of the white population. When these figures are adjusted on a per capita basis, they reveal an extraordinary disparity: blacks are committing more than 50 times the number of violent racial crimes of whites.
According to the latest annual report on murder by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most inter-racial murders involve black assailants and white victims, with blacks murdering whites at 18 times the rate that whites murder blacks.
These breathtaking disparities began to emerge in the mid-1960's, when there was a sharp increase in black crime against whites, an upsurge which, not coincidentally, corresponds exactly with the beginning of the modern civil rights movement."
In 2005 there were 8000 black homicides 90% by blacks killing blacks.
Put all this together with a disproportionate rate of black children abandoned by their fathers (innocent children who did not ask to be brought into such a hellish world). Their homes a round-robin of men there only seeking sex with their mother (is this a reason many black men grow up abusing black women?), also, a high rate of young black teen-age girls with sexually transmitted diseases, etc. etc.
And the people who suffer greatly from all this is the black community and especially the young children.
While so called leaders like Obama, the "Rev." Wright, the "Rev." Al Sharpton and all the other Reverends are ignoring these problems and blaming whites and America but never themselves and all the time living a millionaire's lifestyle. They have no shame and white liberals are afraid to call them on it.
All this speaks of a failure of many black churches, black leaders and much of black society.
The Revs. should take heed of the following:
". . . therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand."
There are exceptions to these failures. Bill Cosby is one of them. But they are not so many.
May 1, 2008 8:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 20:22
Yes, it's good for a black church or white church or any church to point out our collective failings. And collectively we should elect people and support programs that in some measure correct societal injustice in whatever form.
But where most well meaning religious people fall down in my view, is in their failure to examine their own personal faults and shortcomings, and change them through acts of honest self-examination, will and self-discipline.
If we eat or drink too much, are too often rude, profane or obnoxious, or criticize and judge too much, are petty, jealous or angry, or carry too much pride, greed and selfishness in our natures.......few members of any religion actually make an honest effort to undergo a little self reflection and correct even to a minor degree these frailties in themselves as individuals.
Yet they forever demand that others, whether society at large, or white society, or black society or whatever group.....transform their behavior lest they perish in a pit of fire.
Why not gage the effectiveness of your religion on the basis of how much it encourages individual responsibility and how much it helps you transform your own individual behavior. Such a process put into some kind of effective practice will actually in turn transform in a positive way the collective behaviors as a by product.
May 1, 2008 6:09 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 18:09
Thank you for the perspective of this article regarding the "different" rhetoric and speech of Rev. Wright, which I gather is not unique within the black religious community. A similar article was in today's Globe and Mail - Canada's 'national' newspaper, written by Michael Valpy.
Yes, Wright had some really over the top speculations such as the U.S. government inflicting AIDS on blacks and other minorities (but it is true that the U.S. govt. did not act quickly to deal with AIDS because of the 'underclass' it affected first)....
I watched Wright's speech at the NAACP and the q and a at the next day's press conference; and yes, the Wright press conference had some of a "full of himself" tone to it but the NAACP speech and Obama's 'much phrased' earlier speech on race relations in the U.S. both identified the isolation and differences between the mainstream community and the black community, things that a society needs to hear, accept and deal with.... not privilege the preferred rhetoric and mannerisms of one's own group as the only way to talk....
... I am amazed by the intellectual impoverishment and fish school group think of the
almost all of the U.S. media's commentators - this is not a group remotely capable of guiding an intelligent discussion on race; the same group that, with few exceptions, acted as Bush's cheering section in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, rather than as honest journalists......
May 1, 2008 5:44 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 17:44
the reverend wright is an intellectual,bright biblical scholar and culturally diverse in many areas.however i am disheartened with his performance at the press club earlier in the week.i feel that he blew an opportunity to showcase himself as a serious scholar of religion and various cultures.it was sad to see a 66 yr old man behave in the manner he displayed during the questioning and answer session.he completely made a buffon of himself and this was sad.i'm sure that many of his parishoners,including senator obama had ever seen this type of behavior from him.initially senator obama refused to disown the rev wright when so many others applied pressure to the senator to do so.in his most recent conference senator obama did repudiate rev wright as a person and his philosophy and the senator was correct in doing so.
May 1, 2008 5:26 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 17:26
There is no excuse or explanation for some of the nonsense Rev Wright has stated. We all have a remarkably similar sense of right and wrong. We must not allow those with an over active vocabulary cloud the difference between right and wrong.
May 1, 2008 2:37 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 14:37
""Why?", What believer in answers could fail to see, if not God's hand, then His warning in the events of that dreadful day?"
Someone who knows bad things are done by people sometimes, and was busy trying to help hold our *ahem* together, while some might be all primed for an apocalyptic freakout?
What *I* saw that day, I won't get into, but somehow the Gods weren't all that concerned with blame-games and sociopolitical advantage.
One bit of Christian conditioning I could never quite shake, was the idea that having a bad pain day or other illness or injury reflected some mysterious 'punishment' or rationale for blame. Not on bad pain days, anyway, when not thinking clearly.
It's foolish, though, to think so.
In the case of an attack, there are things that must be done. Defending, rescue and healing, and rallying friends. In the immediate term, America did pretty darn well.
Soon, though, the assignation of blame and scapegoats and 'How could God let this happen?' crept in after an America I was actually pretty proud of that day for *not* freaking out despite an absence of leadership till *Joe Biden, of all people* came out of hiding and started giving some answers.
What's to blame is not 'God removing his protection,' ...it's certain people believing they *had it in the first place,* and thus could bully around the world with impunity.
A simple Pagan isn't mystified by the fact that after how-many-decades of strutting around the world with guns and money and nukes, that *someone* might pull off something like that.
I didn't ask, 'Gods, how could you let this happen,' ...I asked, 'Gods-who-put-me-here-among-others-with human-life-and-some skills, what can I do now?'
I confess it was a little less articulate than that at the time.
Us, though. This happened because someone picked a fight and a lot of things went right when they tried.
What we, and those among us in religion and politics and money, have chosen to use it for, that's on them, and on us for letting them.
May 1, 2008 12:12 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 12:12
" Frank:
"What a relief! So Revs Falwell and Robertson were right to say God removed His protective hand over America because of her sins of abortion and homosexuality!"
The 'ridicule' there was hardly intense enough, if you happen to be a queer Pagan that politically-influential preachers and Republican party operatives tried to use as a scapegoat for a profound national trauma cause of some supernatural notion of divine retribution...
In the case of blaming a century of American foreign policy in a post-colonialist era, suppporting oppressive regimes that have used hatred of America to divert dissent while we helped them fill their coffers for the fact that that hatred hit our shores, well, yes, that's very different.
'God' didn't do it, but maybe your *ideas* about what's 'Godly' and what Christians expect others to go through in the name of God and unrestrained capitalism *did.*
It doesn't change the fact that *some men did some very horrible and unconscionable things,* but there is a difference.
""Oh, uh, I forgot, that was a different situation, worthy of the intense media ridicule because... because those were different, non-politically correct reasons for 9-11 that don't count because...because they're not politically correct! "
Those prominent Republican preachers weren't saying, 'Hey, treat people in other nations and here *better,*' they were saying, 'In the name of God, treat people *worse.*
Very different.
"We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline."
How about we start with better management? Since apparently some 'stronger values' don't meet with your approval?
"There are no handouts or i am owed this because."
In America, everyone is owed a fair shake. And some 'handouts' are *in fact* *owed.*
Not only owed, but *wise.*
My folks paid into the Social Security system all their working lives as bought-insurance against anything happening to themselves or their kids or their grandkids, or their neighbors who might get hungry if anything went wrong for *them* and make the neighborhood less safe.
It's not a 'handout' to pay out on that insurance so a smart person like me who can't walk so much or handle a working week doesn't spend her life scrounging for food or housing, instead of contributing as she can to society. Even if you don't like me.
Especially cause you don't like me.
There's a million things that you take for granted that have to go right in this capitalist society for people to be as 'self-reliant' as Red states whose roads and infrastructures and subsidies are paid for by blue state urban taxpayers... and one bigot anywhere in that chain can jam someone's life up for months or years.
Fairness and equality, and, yes, using some of our wealth on *the general welfare* instead of bigotry and prisons, aren't just something we all owe each other, they are *the way we have this America as we know it.*
You don't like 'handouts,' you look at what the corporations get on our backs.
May 1, 2008 11:46 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 11:46
I remember on 9/11 how I searched the Scriptures...not just the Isaiah, Jerimiah, Ezekial, Jesus, but also of Mohammad and deep into my own heart for a "Why God?" What wrong could be righted by such a monsterous, and audacious crime?
I happened to have been celebrating my retirement in NYC the day when the 1993 attack on the Trade Center towers was made. My wife and I emerged from our hotel to excitement in the streets. "Someone bombed the Trade Towers" we were told. Our reaction was "What is or are the "Trade Towers"? I heard about the 9/11 attack while returning an empty school bus to the bus parking lot....eight, nine, years into that retirement.....My response, not profound but accurate....."Those 'Ay Rabs' never did like that building."
As the enormity of the attack emerged that morning, falling bodies, the second plane, the first,and than the second tower collapse,the Pentagon and the crash in Pensylvania, the grounding of all air traffic.....you didn't have to be a retired Air Force pilot or the Vice President to discern that "the Nation" not simply the financial image of America had been attacked.
"Why?", What believer in answers could fail to see, if not God's hand, then His warning in the events of that dreadful day? (A person or a people can become pretty "sure of themselves" in an extended period of "prosperity," some might say "dominance." So.....why God? and why now?
Is Reverend Wright the only one to speculate that 'America's chickens are coming home to roost? What thinking person can honestly say that the thought hasn't occurred to thems? I certainly did. Should we pust back? Of course! But to ignor that American dominance of a finite planet is not universally welcome is beyond false patriotism, it is stupid, and it is dangerous. The God of "God Bless America" is, if anything at all, God-over-all. NOT an American God, NOT a Christian God, perhaps NOT even a 'Humane' God. God is transcendent;- else He/She/It is not God at all!
"Cheap patriotism." is akin to what Diedrich Bonhoffer called "Cheap Grace." I won't unapologetically wave the flag any more than I will wear the cross of my faith, and for precisely the same reason! My God is a BIG GOD whose interests transcend Christianity, Islam, Bahai, Buddism..... and perhaps life itself.
Bottom line. Rev. Wright, there are folks beyond the "Black Church" for whom you speak. Barak Obama, Go for it, fight the fight, you have my vote as a citizen of the world, and of the kingdom of God. It is a bonus that you are also a Christian American. When you lose, as is likely, (Most people don't get to be President), don't forget nor be ashamed of where you came from or any that you disclaimed in this race.
God Bless us all!
May 1, 2008 11:34 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 11:34
There are no mandates from God based on race or color.The mandates are based on compassion,love,wisdom and keeping God in your life.This country was built on christian faith with a belief in God.If any pastor wants to cry foul, they better look right at their home, their community. The Lord tells us we need to start there, not to blame. We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline.There are no handouts or i am owed this because..The Lord teaches thru our works we will be judged.To many think they have been wronged or are owed something, well your not..Thank the Lord that you live in the United States and have the opportunities that are here. My grandparents and parents did. mg
May 1, 2008 10:57 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 10:57
There are no mandates from God based on race or color.The mandates are based on compassion,love,wisdom and keeping God in your life.This country was built on christian faith with a belief in God.If any pastor wants to cry foul, they better look right at their home, their community. The Lord tells us we need to start there, not to blame. We need stronger family values and morals, teach our young respect,discipline.There are no handouts or i am owed this because..The Lord teaches thru our works we will be judged.To many think they have been wronged or are owed something, well your not..Thank the Lord that you live in the United States and have the opportunities that are here. My grandparents and parents did. mg
May 1, 2008 10:57 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 10:57
Black preachers have specialized in selling baloney to poor congregiants for a long time. They dress in Gucci clothes and drive in Cadillacs on the proceeds from their impoverished flock.
May 1, 2008 9:45 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 09:45
To some extent I agree with your argument; however, I think when Rev. Wright makes statements long the lines of his declaration that AIDS was a government conspiracy to eliminate blacks, that is where he crosses the line from speaking unpleasant truths to something more sinister. I’ve personally seen black prejudice against whites, and it’s just as ugly as the opposite.
Has white America oppressed blacks? Certainly. No argument there. But it’s time for African-Americans to stop using the oppression of the past as an excuse for failure in the present. Do we need to continue assisting in progress for African-Americans? Yes, but at the same time, they need to work as a group to uplift themselves as well.
May 1, 2008 9:06 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 09:06
What a relief! So Revs Falwell and Robertson were right to say God removed His protective hand over America because of her sins of abortion and homosexuality!
Oh, uh, I forgot, that was a different situation, worthy of the intense media ridicule because... because those were different, non-politically correct reasons for 9-11 that don't count because...because they're not politically correct!
Forbes, thy name is Blinkered Left-Wing Victimology.
May 1, 2008 8:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 08:55
Jim, Thank you for your response. The only thing that I was trying to state is #1 there are reasons why so many interepret scripture differently. Also, I wanted to point out the scripture that Jesus states: we are not all children of God, although we are all His creation. One thing I know is that Jesus wants us to love Him and others and as He states, if we love Him then we will obey Him (keep His commandments).
Love, in Christ.
May 1, 2008 8:38 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 08:38
Jesus's words also make me feel uncomfortable, and often reflect badly on Americannness, so while we are at it, why can't we all denounce him too?
May 1, 2008 7:48 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 07:48
Ah yes, another apologist for institutionalized racism who rights it all by claiming - a people “buked and scorned” and “dehumanized and brutalized.”
Excuse me while I go vomit...
Dr. O
May 1, 2008 7:39 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 07:39
Matt Ryan wrote:
"What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stop counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!"
What is false in what Mr Forbes wrote? Help me to understand what fallacies did Mr. Forbes state in this piece.
May 1, 2008 6:05 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 06:05
Rev. Wright, a patriot and prophet, is going easy on America's fall from grace: anyone can read "The New Pearl Harbor," by PhD Griffin, to know with absolute moral authority that Bush and Cheney committed 9-11.
May 1, 2008 5:47 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 05:47
Dr. Forbes is gifted in this response. Unfortunately, once Miss Hillary wins (steals) the primary, she'll run off to these same churches that she loathes so much, hook arms with a black pastor, join in singing "We Shall Overcome", promise everything, deliver nothing, and life goes on. Because too many of our black churches appear so grateful to a white woman for coming to their congregation, that they will forgive and ignore her transgressions.
Didn't Bill Clinton invite Pastor Wright to the White House when he was caughting cheating on his wife? And now Miss Hillary denounces him?
Only in America....
May 1, 2008 5:39 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 05:39
Religion, Race and Politics...the culture war is raging in America according to the Karl Rove political playbook.
Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa. If Man was made in God's image, and the Judeo-Christian God was "discovered" in Africa...then I guess that God is a black African. If Jesus was born in Africa, he would be the black son of a black god as well.
How many Rev. Wright haters pray to a God with "African" features and worship a dark- skinned Jesus? Uh-Oh...race and religion...
How many Christians worshiping a European Jesus are conservative republicans? Religion and politics…
Can you make the distinction between the U.S. government and the American people, or do you intentionally blur the line between Party and Nation in order to intimidate critics of your policies (un-American, un-patriotic)? Politics and fascism…
Is “God’s will”, interpreted by the “prophet”, really the anticipated consequence of an action? Religion and policy…
Do you believe that all actions taken in the name of a European God-style Nation will result in only positive outcomes? Will history always prove you correct, or will you wait for enough time to pass that people forget your terrible mistakes?
Did any of the Rev. Wright haters actually listen to his sermon or did you just internalize the conservative spin?
May 1, 2008 4:01 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 04:01
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
May 1, 2008 3:53 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 03:53
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
May 1, 2008 3:53 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 03:53
This is what Rev. Wright should have said, this past Sunday and Monday, to explain how the purpose of his "damn the USA" comment was misunderstood. Unfortunately, Dr. Forbes's thoughtful explanation of the history of the prophetic pastoral voice in the black church and hebrew faith cannot be reduced to a political soundbite that a candidate's staff would recommend he use. We live in an era when technological innovations such as the Internet and wireless telephony should enable a country, which was founded on free speech and political debate, to make such strides democratically. In order for that national growth to happen, we have to figure out how to prevent the pressures of the media for a story that will sell (religious leader + allegedly unpatriotic comment + tie to candidate = story) from shackling our minds.
May 1, 2008 3:51 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 03:51
Abraham Lincoln, President and Prophet
An excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865). etched in marble to left of the seated figure of Lincoln in his Memorial in D.C.
The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Lincoln's remark about how the entire speech was received; "... I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."
May 1, 2008 3:15 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 03:15
Moron. Religionists are all the same: they claim to have a special pipeline to God, so that they can try to imbue their own private cravings with the luster of the Divine.
May 1, 2008 2:34 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 02:34
I find the reaction of the media to Rev. Wright statements totally irrational. The media is concentrating on the trivial, while forgetting what is important to the average Joes and Janes, or more precisely the 90% of the population.
The issue of Obama, and Rev. Wrigth is no issue. That Obama goes to the church of Rev. Wright does not prove that Mr. Obama approves with everything that Rev. wright states. I agree with Aristotle with most of his statements. That I agree with most and not all of his believes does not make me a polytheist. Here we are stating that because Mr. Obama goes to Rev. Wright Church he must totally, 100% agree with every statement, and every believes that Rev. Wright adhere to; to add insult to injury the media request that he distance himself from the Rev. What we have here is irrational reasoning.
So, what is important to the 90% of the population?
Health care is not a luxury but a right that every citizen should have access to. The health care system is broken beyond patching. It is Humpty Dumpty after it fell from the wall.
Every worker should have a living wage. If companies can afford to pay their CEO’s 100 of millions, I am sure that they have the money to pay their employees a living wage of few thousand dollars.
Children are the future, so we must ensure that they are provided proper education and support starting from birth.
May 1, 2008 1:00 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 01:00
Rev. Forbes,
Thanks so much. My Great Grand Mom would have loved you
May 1, 2008 12:58 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 00:58
Rev. Forbes,
Thanks so much. My Great Grand Mom would have loved y
May 1, 2008 12:56 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 00:56
Given the levels of illegitimate births and criminality in the black community in America, the "critique" from black pastors should be more directed to those in the pews than faceless "oppressors" outside.
May 1, 2008 12:24 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 00:24
what is a "black church"?
how many americans have been to ebenezeer bapist church. i know about how many european americans, and it's not many.
what is a black church? what is black?
barrack obama ain't that black and i know a few black pastors for the deep south. ebeneezer baptist church? been there. i use to have pictures of ebeneezer baptist church in atlanta georgia, but they melted.
ever heard of George Forbes, Carl Stokes, Louis Stokes, Jesse Jackson, Malcom X, or some guy called Martin Luther King?
look, reverend wright knows jim crowe, even though reverend wright didn't experience jim crowe. jim crowe only died yesterday.
i am so white was born in '64. i feel jim crowe in my bones. i've seen jim crowe. i experienced jim crowe.
ever been to the mississipi delta?
i have.
jim crowe died yesterday, and some people take a week to get over things.
barrack obama has personal vitues, is talented, but probably hasn't killed anything he has eaten.
barrack obama is related to dick cheney by blood, but.....i don't think he has dick cheney in his blood.
May 1, 2008 12:00 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 1, 2008 00:00
Dino: Criticizing US policy isn't what got him in trouble, its equating our motives and good intentions with the mistakes that have been made. We don't intentionally kill citizens, we don't celebrate when thousands of Iraqis (or any Muslims) die, we're not happy when we're killing people....sure we may be misguided and mislead or easily duped into agreeing to a war that was wrong or being stupid enough to believe a preemptive war against a dictator would be percieved as a good thing, but to equate the average American with someone who revels in death is wrong on so many levels. That's was and is biggest problem. People can be racist or sexist or mean and cruel at times, but most (not all of course) people and americans don't intentionally set out to be mean, or racist or cruel etc. (speaking of the US of KKK comments or whatever). And what man of god would damn anyone, much less a whole nation of people? Isnt it their job to forgive our sins and bring us closer to god, not damn us?
April 30, 2008 10:24 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 22:24
Oh please. Religion is what is ruining the world. Everyone believes they are "more right" than the other. And no one can seem to move forward. People keep harboring what was done to their ancestors in the past. The past is the past, there's nothing you can do about it. As people become more enlightened through each generation, that's where the real learning and any kind of healing can take place. Crazy religious loons like Rev. Wright prancing and dancing around like an insane person just make things worse. Is he a pastor or a comedian on HBO's Def Comedy Jam???
April 30, 2008 9:55 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 21:55
The Right Reverend Wright no more represents the black church than the Right Reverend Sharpton represents black people.
Rather pathetic that he won't just take his 15 seconds and go quietly.
April 30, 2008 9:26 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 21:26
What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stopped counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!
April 30, 2008 8:56 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:56
What a bunch of logical fallacious ca ca. I stop counting after the first half dozen fallacies. All, every -- come on! Universal quantifiers & qualifiers? This guy must count on an ignorant (as in ignoring logic) flock. I am not buying it. Simply stated: Liberals (yes,even liberal Reverends)redefine meaning to fit their meaning. Ugghh!
April 30, 2008 8:55 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:55
Excellent article of truth Rev. James. Well done and God bless you
April 30, 2008 8:25 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:25
Excellent article of truth Rev. James. Well done and God Bless you.
April 30, 2008 8:21 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:21
Jim,
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
April 30, 2008 8:04 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:04
Jim,
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
April 30, 2008 8:03 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:03
Jim,
For the first time in the nearly 50 years since we were seminary classmates, I am disappointed in you. Two months ago, it seemed our nation was coming to a time of healing, a time to build up, a time to gather together. We had, for the first time in four decades, a leader who had the dream and the skills to bring us together. That dream is being shattered, in large part by the very people who have been calling for peace and justice and an end to poverty and war. For Jeremiah Wright, and, for you, as well, this was "a time to keep silence" unless you were going to have something constructive to add to the political scene. Instead Wright chose to tear down, to speak hatefully. You are supporting him. I think our nation has had quite enough of hateful talk, and if Obama loses, you prophets will have to bear some responsibility.
April 30, 2008 8:03 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 20:03
Excellent!
April 30, 2008 7:40 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 19:40
I have never heard so much double-talk as I have when folks try to defend Wright. He is nothing like MLK, who appealed for love and justice from the pulpit. Wright is a hater who tries to inflame hatred and preys on susceptible weaklings. Only a few black churches advocate this hatred, and all the others who don't should speak out -- in the name of MLK and his tradition. Their total silence is curious. This type of racism is just that -- and I've heard too few liberals or blacks repudiate it. Guess that is left to us crackers.
April 30, 2008 7:24 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 19:24
I have now gone from a sure vote for obama to once again undecided. If McCain was hanging with David Duke for years he would not even be a blip in this mess. If Obama makes a very strong speech distancing himself far,very far away from wright i'll consider voting for him again. i am afraid i'm done with obama i'm in the white registered independent category who will probably be the most sought after. i'm tired of the bush clinton,bush era. Wright, you are not anywhere close to even one percent of MLK. Hope you are 15 miutes of pain and gone. you screwed the eventual winner
April 30, 2008 7:09 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 19:09
What Obama's pastor discussed at the Press Club, the other night, is old hat for many people in Europe and the rest of the world, outside the United States. The policies of many American governments have been imperialistic to the core, and in their imperialistic manifestations, they have been terrorizing the people at many parts of this world.
Somehow, most Americans are able to deny this reality, and pretend it is not so. When someone, especially someone American, like this pastor, starts speaking the unvarnished truth, then all hell breaks loose, because the American Nation, collectively, is desperate to maintain the collective denial.
Dino Koutsolioutsos
April 30, 2008 7:05 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 19:05
Before Justice there must be Truth:
The Truth about Christianity for Doctor/Preacher Forbes' Perusal and Comments:
1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm
2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
April 30, 2008 6:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 18:32
It has become the norm for ministers such as Wright to proclaim themselves to be self righteous and to believe their words stand lord of all.His words relating to 9-11 were hateful and I have no doubt he has hid his true idenity from Barak Obama and others all in the name of the dollar. His performance of the past days will be his legend,the good that his former chruch has done will not cover his vindictive mission. Surely he understands the statement a dog always eats it own vomit. Rev Wright is a wolf dressed in sheep clothing, he nor his pack can be ignored least he will slaughter the sheep.
April 30, 2008 6:27 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 18:27
Sir, Thank you for you expose' on Black Liberation Theology, it is the best explanation I have heard so far.
If I may, with respect to Elizabeth R., this type of rant is exactly why the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is so very popular not with just black congregants but with many others from different ethnic and class stratas. She asserts, as if anyone really cares, that Barack, the Rev. Wright and by implication all people who desire good standing in the greater, white dominated multi-ethnic society, first denounce Minister Farrakhan before they can hold national office. It is this type of old thinking that is the essence of the gospel according to Jeremiah Wright and many like him. In fact, Aristole spoke about those who rely on some other man to tell them who they can associate with, and what they can say and not say...they are called slaves. Minister Farrakhan is a very respected and admired person in the Black Community. He is a brillant, well educated, cultured man who has in the past and continues to speak truth (sometimes his) to power, and I for one appreciate him.
Perhaps "Liz" is not aware that slavery for Black people and "women", was overturned for over a century now.
April 30, 2008 6:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 18:22
This is a great time in America.
God bless Obama. God bless pastor Wright(guy is so fair did he too have a white parent).
But to me the pride of performance goes to the young white woman who was so brave or maybe so bored in Kansas, had the insight/folly, to marry a blackman and ; walla ,lo and behold, now America is on the verge of electing its first genuine product, its first real and truly authentic (DNA)President whose mother was white as the snow and whose father was as black as the night.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of. Be a part of this dream.
Obama may consider himself a blackman but he is also half white and that is the only truth.
April 30, 2008 6:10 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 18:10
The black church may have something on its heart, but when that "something" includes hero-worshipping a man who nakedly professed admiration for the orchestrator of history's most successful attempt at genocide based strictly on ethnic identity, you have to ask yourself what planet that church is living on.
You see, the thing is, you can't shift your principles depending on whether or not it's YOUR ox that's being gored. Obama should have left those pews when he saw how fervently Wright admired Farrakhan - that should have TOLD Obama something about who Wright really was: the kind of guy you can't trust, the kind of guy who only has problems with bigotry when it's his skin on the receiving end. Farrakhan is one of the world's biggest anti-Semites, and if you go along with anti-Semitism because you ain't Jewish, you can't complain when white people go along with racism because they ain't black. And in not repudiating Wright for hanging with Farrkhan and his ideas, Obama was tacitly admitting that those views just didn't bother him that MUCH - because, after all, he ain't Jewish. Those views are bothering him now because they've become suddenly very, very, politically inconvenient.
The black experience in America has been awful - but it's not going to get better or become undone by making excuses for someone like Wright holding up someone like Farrakhan as a "role model" for the black community. You'll notice that what Arab Muslims are doing to black Muslims in the Sudan (let's see, I think the Janjaweed is closing in on 500,000 dead and more than a million refugees) never enters Wright's conversation - nahhhhh, it's JEWS and ZIONISM that are black people's problem!!!!
They have a quaint saying in England: "you can't run with the fox and hunt with the hounds". You can't call yourself a real Christian and hang with Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, and you can't hang with Wright's embrace of Farrakhan and claim you're shocked, shocked, SHOCKED when that guy turns out to be someone who also thinks the US government cooked up the AIDS virus to kill black people, holds up bombing Japan in WWII as terrorism while forgetting to mention Pearl Harbor, and stabs you in the back because you've distanced yourself from his nutsos.
It's all of a piece, brothers and sisters. Principles remain principles even when history makes it irksome to maintain them. Obama is sowing what he reaped by not heaving himself out of Wright's church years ago, and finding himself another black church - because the "black church" is no more a monolith than the Catholis are nowadays, or the Anglicans, or the Presbyterians. For some reason, Obama stuck with THIS one, and his reasoning for why just doesn't hold water.
April 30, 2008 5:44 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 17:44
Reverand Wright is no prophet--he is a profiteer, a shameless exhibitionist feasting on his own festering bitterness while he preys upon the vulnerabilities of his congregation. And on a lighter note, how can anyone believe a man who smirks more than President Bush does?
April 30, 2008 5:43 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 17:43
Angela,
Jesus was Jesus and I am but a mortal man. As a mortal man I have trouble grasping mortal things. God, when he realized man was progressing without restraints began talking to us in parables.
I can barely make sense out of a common conversation and I am terrible with riddles. Because of these limitations I let the words God gave us prior to the advent of parables direct my life. The words of God that I obey are very simple, they are the Ten Commandments. I understand those words.
The hidden meanings in the bible as well as the many attempts by man in multiple books to write about the bible only confuse me more. I have lived for sixty six years and I am proud to say that I haven’t nor will I under any circumstance kill someone.
I work at fulfilling the rest of the Ten Commandments as best I can. I look at the Bible as a tool that was provided by God to further enhance my chances of living within the Ten Commandments. I do not look upon the Bible as anything else but a tool I can use towards that end. END THE WAR IN IRAQ.
April 30, 2008 5:42 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 30, 2008 17:42
Reverand Wright is no prophet--he is a profiteer, a shameless exhibitionist feasting on his own festering bitterness while he preys upon the vulnerabilities of his congregation. And on a lighter note, how can anyone believe a man who smirks more than President Bush does?